itz@rahul.net (Ian T Zimmerman) writes:> One problem (admittedly of a different nature) is that allowing this makes> implementation much harder. Therefore, there'll be fewer and more expensive> implementations, and the organisations responsible for the few

So true (ahem).
Example: Scheme is so much more widely available than C++ due to C++ simple
minded grammar.

If you have tried to write a (complete) C++ parser, you know that it can totally
prevent someone from even considering writing a C++ compiler. And yet there are
tons of dozens of C++ compilers.